E3 2012: Nintendo for Wii and U

It's over. Go home.

Hey, you've reached the last of the big E3 blog posts for this year! And this one's the shortest of the bunch! Because I decided to turn a bunch of relevant content into a later blog post for sometime in the coming weeks! Because sometimes I feel like showcasing that I understand the value of brevity despite my routinely choosing to neglect it! It's time for me to stop these exclamations, E3 is an annoying, draining thing to cover - especially on a dead-end little blog like this - and it's profoundly sad that this week is such a big yearly event for so many nerds whose lives simply have nothing else of value within them!

That's enough.

At any rate, it's Nintendo time, after I gave up before even getting to them last year. So, after seeing the dire state of the industry and general corporate cluelessness thoroughly reflected in Sony and Microsoft's conferences, it was up to Nintendo to swoop in and save the day.

E3 2012: Microsoft and Sony Strangled

More important than things that actually matter.

So, I wrote earlier this week about how increasingly apparent it had become that Sony and Microsoft have no business being in the video game industry in the first place. They both went on to hold their respective E3 press conferences and ultimately only reinforced my statements, entirely as I expected. Even their intended 'big surprises' were the result of exceedingly poor planning and an utter lack of understanding of this industry, their place in it, or even their own small and rather rigid market demographics that their focusing on catering to all generation has only served to isolate themselves from the larger market.

Let's take a look at their trainwreck of a situation further.

Pre-E3 2012: Wii Need Nintendo

No! No no no! Haven't they stopped this nonsense yet?

Oh hey there, internet. Guess it's about time I showed up this year, isn't it? I've actually been working on an assortment of posts for your consideration and prompt disposal, but as usual, I've been so caught up in all sorts of writing - including the aforementioned posts - that E3 coverage ended up being my first 2012 posts this time. Yes, there's no excuse, but there's plenty of time for me to be charming and witty and horrifically grating about that later.

With E3 2012 beginning today and Nintendo having kicked things off early last night with an impressive second unveiling of the Wii U - their new console successor to the Wii, which they'd been forced to initially unveil last year at E3 2011 when they weren't quite ready due to leaks - it's time to talk video games. And if there's one thing you love to hear talked about, it's video games.

Video games.

Video games, video games, video games.

The Tears of Caga Tió

Holiday cheer meets confectionery defecation!

It is Christmas day now, isn't it? And as usual, I'm exceedingly sleep deprived after staying up all night working on various things. You'll never find a healthier chap.

At any rate, though I was tempted to do a Krampus story this year - there will be a Krampus story yet - this year, you get a bizarre little short for the Spanish crowd.

Just earlier this month, the surreal, brilliant Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Christmas special introduced me to a certain Catalan mythological character and holiday tradition - none other than Tió de Nadal, otherwise known as Caga Tió. In a sense, Caga Tió is the anti-Krampus. Rather than punishing children for being children - all children are terrible, remember, you parents out there especially know this to be true - like Santa's monstrous Germanic pal, Caga Tió's sole holiday task is to inevitably poop candy. Ideally, turrón.

Should the Caga Tió fail in this task, the children beat it with sticks. Savagely. See? I was right about children all along.

Anyway, your annual Xmas short story. The whimsy. The weird. All that noise. Go!

The Cruelest Holiday Season

Oh hey, it's already December. And not only December, but Christmas Eve. An exciting time of the year, if there ever was one. But arguably, all times in any and all years are both exciting and unexciting at once. Depends on where you are, who you're with, and countless other variables. Predicable opening paragraph, predictable opening paragraph filler. The opposite of exciting.

And I haven't even remarked yet about how I still need to write here on a more regular basis. Good thing I just got that out of the way. 2011 is a year I've spent mentally congested. Exceedingly so. This was my most inactive year yet writing here on Spiral Reverie. One of my 2012 goals is to change that. This inactivity on my part certainly hasn't been for a lack of trying. I have piles of blog posts sitting here unfinished - many things I wanted to say, or to finish saying, but then that mental congestion struck. Not that it's much of an excuse.

I'll be getting a few more of these things out of the way over the course of the remaining week of the year, at any rate. With any luck, perhaps I'll be a more exciting writer worth your following in 2012. Should I fail at that, in the least, there'll be more juicy little morsels entailing various strings of words that may or may not form thoughts that make some kind of sense for you to sink your mind-fangs into in the next year

All that yammering aside, I'll catch the few of you passing internet tumbleweeds up on all things interesting and uninteresting in a post I'll end the year with in another week or so, the salvaging of a post I intended to complete about four months ago. Funny, that. (And there will be a funnier Xmas story later tonight. I promise. I won't break this one.)

On to the purpose of this post. These prior paragraphs? An appetizer - probably some bread you've filled up on enough as so to lose interest in what lies ahead - before the mass of somber that follows as the substance of this post. You guys like somber, right? Statistically, a lot of you aren't feeling too wonderful at this purportedly festive time of year, after all. I've actually got some legitimate excuses for my latest bout of lethargy and malaise.

This one's for you, sad people. Relatively raw, just the way you like it. Always gluttons for punishment.

The House That Murder Built

Oh, right. Halloween.

Once again, I disappeared for over a month and a half. More blog posts are coming, but things are clogged up, and for reasons that are surprisingly reasonable for once. This time, anyway.

But hey, I tossed something horribly spooky at you last year, so this year, you're getting a goofier, weirder Halloween short story again. And not very long, unfortunately. But then, short fiction is short fiction. In the least, though my short story output has been much slower this year, it hasn't halted entirely.

With how infrequently I update these days - frustrating as that is - feel free to think of this blog as a ghost. Ghost blog. You lose, Ghost Dad.

A Funny Story About 9 and 11

Hey! This is a no smoking city!

Happy Terror Day, everybody! Now that we've hit the ten-year mark, I'd say it's about time we started commercializing this bad boy. Wouldn't you agree? This is America, there's MONEY TO BE MADE! We can turn this tragedy into treasure - and failing that, cold hard cash - or my name isn't Otis Bunkport Jr.! Which it isn't, mind you. But it might be someday, depending on the degree of violence with which people react to my completely tasteful picture caption over there.

You see it? Are you laughing? You're not laughing. Why aren't you laughing?

Let's be honest. It's the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Many people are going to be sentimental and weepy. Others are going to be distasteful and balance that out with some appropriately inappropriate jokes. And others yet are going to make everybody uncomfortable by being angry. Very angry. Blindingly, seethingly, I-spit-fire-and-you-will-be-incinerated angry. And no, not necessarily at nebulous foreign forces perceived to be eternal enemies of 'our freedom,' or 'threats from within,' entailing non-white, non-Christian, non-conservative persons within the United States. 'Are Country' nonsense. Rage that will set your house on fire and possibly neuter your dog. Painlessly, mind you. You should have had that done already, anyway. What are you? Some kind of irresponsible dog owner?

Guess what kind of content is in this post below! You've been warned.